In August 1916, Lance Corporal Dakin was killed aged 22. He was born in Nottingham where his father was an engine driver. After leaving school he had a job as a warehouse porter and packer.

 

He was called up in 1915 when he was 21 and joined the Royal Engineers as a Pioneer and was later promoted. He had met a Stathern girl, Elsie Singleton and according to the Grantham Journal due to his military duties they had a quiet wedding at Hawton parish church near Newark in early August 1915.

 

This was almost exactly a year before he died, killed in action aged 22 in northern France. While he was overseas his wife was living with his parents here in Stathern and sadly she may not have seen him again after their wedding.

 

John Dakin is buried at the Town Cemetery in Bethune, Pas-de-Calais. There were no children from his marriage and his wife married again two years later.

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Roger Hawkins, November 2016